Big turnout: Lin’s talk at the forum attracted more than 1,000 businessmen, academics and scholars who comprised the who’s who in the Chinese community.
IN March 2002, when Prof Dr Justin Lin Yifu of Peking Unversity was in Malaysia to talk about China’s emerging economy, many in the audience came more to satisfy their curiosity: Why did this Taiwanese want to defect to China? How did he manage to swim across the tidal Taiwan Strait to Xiamen undetected?
In 1979, when this bold move took place, Taiwan was hostile towards the economically-backward mainland which was about to open its door to the outside world.
